Crovenia Road Trip: Day 2 – Evening at Metelkova

The evening of Day 2, I met up with a friend of mine that I had met during Global Leaders’ Summit who is currently working on the national team in Slovenia for AIESEC. They were going to take us out for a night in Ljubljana.

They gave us some of their national beer to try, except it was flavoured. Hungary has flavoured beer (apple, orange, lemon) as well, but the ones in Slovenia seemed so exotically flavoured. I tried the Red Orange one and it tastes much better than the ones available in Hungary.

Another drink we tried was Borovničevec which is a blueberry liqueur. It was very sweet, but also very strong. I actually quite like it, and it tastes much better than the palinka that Hungarians are so fond of. Mixed in with the liqueur are bits of blueberry that have soaked in the alcohol and sugar making it very strong. I even found a recipe to make the stuff.

That night, they took us to a nighbourhood called Metelkova which is an autonomous social centre in the city. Consisting of 7 buildings, the site became a communal space for artists, vagrants, musicians, outcasts and backpackers to exercise their free will and creativity. The grounds are former military barracks which was squatted in 1993. Now the site is home to a number of nightclubs, artist galleries, concert venues and a prison turned hostel.

Prior to going, I had no idea what I was walking into or what to expect. The others had assured me that we were walking into a very alternative part of Ljubljana. At first I was a bit creeped out by the strange artwork and sculptures in the moonlight. Plus, it was extremely busy with tons of extremely drunk people wandering about and being rowdy. But once I relaxed and started taking in the atmosphere, it wasn’t so bad.

In the end, it was a very cool experience. I have never seen anything like it. I wish I could have gone in the daylight as well just to see the different buildings properly. I unfortunately do not have any photos, but I found this video that describes Metelkova well:

This is part 3 of a 5 part series on my recent road trip to Croatia and Ljubljana. To read about the rest of my trip, click here.